I think if you check all D1 school rosters for every sport you will not find that many public school girls or boys. Pick any D1 school, go to every roster for every sport and you may find 1 out of 50 from public schools. Lets go to say BC or BU just for women sports and I think the numbers will bear that out.I do not think D1 schools really look at many public school girls, especially in hockey. Everyone lives the dream thinking their kid is the next D1 prospect. If any girl or boy can get a private school education and play a sport, good for them. The parents made the right decision for their kid

You have some good points, so I did check out a few rosters. The percentage of prep athletes vs. public school athletes varies by sport. At Brown, softball only had 3 prep athletes, and two of those were from Catholic schools. Soccer and Lacross were about 1/3 prep school athletes. Hockey was about 1/3 prep, 1/3 public, and 1/3 Canadian (often with some canadian college). What then surprised me was to look at Bowdoin, a D3 roster, and see that 13/19 were from prep schools, this may say more about who gets admitted to Bowdoin than anything else. An unscientific sampling, but I think it is neither what you assumed, that most D1 womens athletes in all sports come from prep schools, or what I assumed, that all D1 womens hockey players come from Canada or prep school.

And on the parents making the decision, sometimes that is the right decision, and the daughter's priorities line up with the parents, or, even better, the decision is driven by the athlete. Unfortunately, sometimes it can be hard on the athlete when it is the parents that think prep school is necessary, and the daughter would rather stay and play with her friends in her home town school.

I think if you check all D1 school rosters for every sport you will not find that many public school girls or boys. Pick any D1 school, go to every roster for every sport and you may find 1 out of 50 from public schools. Lets go to say BC or BU just for women sports and I think the numbers will bear that out.I do not think D1 schools really look at many public school girls, especially in hockey. Everyone lives the dream thinking their kid is the next D1 prospect. If any girl or boy can get a private school education and play a sport, good for them. The parents made the right decision for their kid

You have some good points, so I did check out a few rosters. The percentage of prep athletes vs. public school athletes varies by sport. At Brown, softball only had 3 prep athletes, and two of those were from Catholic schools. Soccer and Lacross were about 1/3 prep school athletes. Hockey was about 1/3 prep, 1/3 public, and 1/3 Canadian (often with some canadian college). What then surprised me was to look at Bowdoin, a D3 roster, and see that 13/19 were from prep schools, this may say more about who gets admitted to Bowdoin than anything else. An unscientific sampling, but I think it is neither what you assumed, that most D1 womens athletes in all sports come from prep schools, or what I assumed, that all D1 womens hockey players come from Canada or prep school.

And on the parents making the decision, sometimes that is the right decision, and the daughter's priorities line up with the parents, or, even better, the decision is driven by the athlete. Unfortunately, sometimes it can be hard on the athlete when it is the parents that think prep school is necessary, and the daughter would rather stay and play with her friends in her home town school.

I agree with NN, sending a 14 year old away to a prep school has got to be a decision by both parents and child and even at that, how does a 14 year old know what is right for them at that age? For those few that will end up on D1 team or even the usa olympic team it is probably worth giving up 4 vulnerable precious years away from your family, but in my opinion for most of us, it is just not worth it, at all at any cost. Let these girls play hockey, enjoy life at home and build strong bonds with school mates and gain confidence in life through this game, it is definately a great confidence builder for girls at all levels.

Let's face facts. For teh very best public high shool players, it is 2 years of frustration playing with girls who aren't very good. For the average HS public player like my daughter who has the advantage of a good to very good HS, public is perfect.

But I totally get the better players wanting to play Prep, it's where their peers are. Hopefully my daughter improves enough to consider the opportunity of playing Prep. If not, Wellesley will be fine for her.

Let's face facts. For teh very best public high shool players, it is 2 years of frustration playing with girls who aren't very good. For the average HS public player like my daughter who has the advantage of a good to very good HS, public is perfect.

But I totally get the better players wanting to play Prep, it's where their peers are. Hopefully my daughter improves enough to consider the opportunity of playing Prep. If not, Wellesley will be fine for her.

Public schools: woburn, reading, duxbury, etc ...dont think there is much frustration on those teams by anyone of "playing with girls that arent good" REALLY?

Let's face facts. For teh very best public high shool players, it is 2 years of frustration playing with girls who aren't very good. For the average HS public player like my daughter who has the advantage of a good to very good HS, public is perfect.

But I totally get the better players wanting to play Prep, it's where their peers are. Hopefully my daughter improves enough to consider the opportunity of playing Prep. If not, Wellesley will be fine for her.

Public schools: woburn, reading, duxbury, etc ...dont think there is much frustration on those teams by anyone of "playing with girls that arent good" REALLY?

Yes, really, for the majority of the girls that is the exact situation. Outside of the top 5-8 teams in this state, that is the exact situation the majority of the girls are dealing with. The few teams who have solid enough coaching situations are fortunate enough to be able to retain their players and not lose them to preps. The majority however do not have that situation. Framingham as an example - just in the 6 years I've watched this team, there are 6 players who went the prep route. Of those 6 players, 2 have since graduated. 1 is on a full ride at a DI, the other is on a partial at a DI. Of the 4 remaining who haven't graduated yet, 2 are deciding between DI offers for hockey and the other 2 are deciding between DI offers for lax and field hockey and have already turned down offers from DI's for hockey. This is not even taking into account the two major names from Framingham (Gedman and Savard) who would have been there before either of my daughters years. If anyone thinks any of those 8 players would not have made a huge difference in the landscape for Framingham over the past 6-8 years they don't know those players. As for other sports for the girls and the DI situation, Framingham has quite a few out there on the NCAA lax, field hockey and soccer fields, including a National team lax player.

Let's face facts. For teh very best public high shool players, it is 2 years of frustration playing with girls who aren't very good. For the average HS public player like my daughter who has the advantage of a good to very good HS, public is perfect.

But I totally get the better players wanting to play Prep, it's where their peers are. Hopefully my daughter improves enough to consider the opportunity of playing Prep. If not, Wellesley will be fine for her.

Public schools: woburn, reading, duxbury, etc ...dont think there is much frustration on those teams by anyone of "playing with girls that arent good" REALLY?

Yes, really, for the majority of the girls that is the exact situation. Outside of the top 5-8 teams in this state, that is the exact situation the majority of the girls are dealing with. The few teams who have solid enough coaching situations are fortunate enough to be able to retain their players and not lose them to preps. The majority however do not have that situation. Framingham as an example - just in the 6 years I've watched this team, there are 6 players who went the prep route. Of those 6 players, 2 have since graduated. 1 is on a full ride at a DI, the other is on a partial at a DI. Of the 4 remaining who haven't graduated yet, 2 are deciding between DI offers for hockey and the other 2 are deciding between DI offers for lax and field hockey and have already turned down offers from DI's for hockey. This is not even taking into account the two major names from Framingham (Gedman and Savard) who would have been there before either of my daughters years. If anyone thinks any of those 8 players would not have made a huge difference in the landscape for Framingham over the past 6-8 years they don't know those players. As for other sports for the girls and the DI situation, Framingham has quite a few out there on the NCAA lax, field hockey and soccer fields, including a National team lax player.

Yes, agree, we have a close friend who sent both daughters to a prep school in sophmore year, and both are now playing on top D1 and D3 schools.

On another note, did anyone catch the Duxbury, Westwood game? Did not see the game, but according to recent article in Globe South, there are only four players on the team. Good way to breed discord on a team.

For the record, several players from Duxbury, Hingham and St. Mary's have left for prep schools over the past few years. Austin Prep used to get ravaged by preps, as did Arlington Catholic, whose goalie from last year transferred. It happens to the top programs too.

Westwood, Duxbury game great to watch, was there scouting for team. Lot of action, Westwood should have had more shots on net, few wide open shots for the taking, not enough sharing of the puck. Second line played very well, very fast, strong, great passing. Westwood should have taken the game. Both D on the top line looked strong, seemed to be the glue. Strong team.

All I can say now given the results so far this month, is that when it comes tournement time, it appears to be a pretty wide open field with quite a few teams in the running this year. A lot of very good teams. Whenever it looks like someone has started to stand out in the crowd, they get beaten (or tied) and drop back a notch. A few interesting games between some top teams this week: Woburn takes on Watertown/Belmont, Duxbury vs Falmouth, AC vs Andover, and StMarys vs Winthrop/Lynn. It will be interesting to see how those all play out.

Go Beez - yes, they are, they can pretty much skate with anyone, have solid defense and a solid goalie. Their issue is not having a true goal scorer. These are the things that happen when you have a youth program who year in and year out puts every single girl player on defense in mites and never lets them move up to forward. Our entire team is made up of players that were for the majority of their playing days defensemen and then got converted to forward when they get to the high school. Their other major issue is after this year they will not have a goalie. Again, goes back to the youth program only focusing on the boys and not paying attention to the girls needs. Not a single girl goalie from squirts through bantams in the program and just one down in mites. Yah, we're bummin' after this year.

Maybe it's not that big a shocker, but Dedham crushed NN 7-0. I wasn't at the game (after coming back from a lingering field hockey injury my daughter was injured in her second game back, Weymouth two weeks ago, and her season is probably done, so my enthusiasm for games is low). I am not sure what happened, but my daughter said Dedham just looked good, and SGs slap s h o t (forum won't allow s-h-o-t?) has gotten much harder. Dedham looks like they could be coming on down the stretch. After a 4-0 start, it's going to be close whether NN makes tournament at all. I hope they find a way to turn it around.

Maybe it's not that big a shocker, but Dedham crushed NN 7-0. I wasn't at the game (after coming back from a lingering field hockey injury my daughter was injured in her second game back, Weymouth two weeks ago, and her season is probably done, so my enthusiasm for games is low). I am not sure what happened, but my daughter said Dedham just looked good, and SGs slap s h o t (forum won't allow s-h-o-t?) has gotten much harder. Dedham looks like they could be coming on down the stretch. After a 4-0 start, it's going to be close whether NN makes tournament at all. I hope they find a way to turn it around.

Go Beez - yes, they are, they can pretty much skate with anyone, have solid defense and a solid goalie. Their issue is not having a true goal scorer. These are the things that happen when you have a youth program who year in and year out puts every single girl player on defense in mites and never lets them move up to forward. Our entire team is made up of players that were for the majority of their playing days defensemen and then got converted to forward when they get to the high school. Their other major issue is after this year they will not have a goalie. Again, goes back to the youth program only focusing on the boys and not paying attention to the girls needs. Not a single girl goalie from squirts through bantams in the program and just one down in mites. Yah, we're bummin' after this year.

Flyers goalie dilemma is not uncommon; they better throw some pads on a girl that doesn't get much playing time and get her some lessons ASAP in order to get ready for next season.

Go Beez - yes, they are, they can pretty much skate with anyone, have solid defense and a solid goalie. Their issue is not having a true goal scorer. These are the things that happen when you have a youth program who year in and year out puts every single girl player on defense in mites and never lets them move up to forward. Our entire team is made up of players that were for the majority of their playing days defensemen and then got converted to forward when they get to the high school. Their other major issue is after this year they will not have a goalie. Again, goes back to the youth program only focusing on the boys and not paying attention to the girls needs. Not a single girl goalie from squirts through bantams in the program and just one down in mites. Yah, we're bummin' after this year.

Flyers goalie dilemma is not uncommon; they better throw some pads on a girl that doesn't get much playing time and get her some lessons ASAP in order to get ready for next season.

Goalies, goalies, goalies, girls hockey is in trouble because of lack of them.your so right that most youth programs do not develope goalies.if a girl is pretty good they are recruited to the private schools..to many teams just throw the pads on some not so skilled girl and hope for the best.good training cost money(and I mean money) and a lot of people can not afford to do it the way it should be done.

Go Beez - yes, they are, they can pretty much skate with anyone, have solid defense and a solid goalie. Their issue is not having a true goal scorer. These are the things that happen when you have a youth program who year in and year out puts every single girl player on defense in mites and never lets them move up to forward. Our entire team is made up of players that were for the majority of their playing days defensemen and then got converted to forward when they get to the high school. Their other major issue is after this year they will not have a goalie. Again, goes back to the youth program only focusing on the boys and not paying attention to the girls needs. Not a single girl goalie from squirts through bantams in the program and just one down in mites. Yah, we're bummin' after this year.

Flyers goalie dilemma is not uncommon; they better throw some pads on a girl that doesn't get much playing time and get her some lessons ASAP in order to get ready for next season.

Unfortunately there is no one currently there that is even interetested. The current back up is a field hockey goalie and is literally only playing hockey for fun and to be with some friends. Will not do extra lessons to get better, which is fine, that's her choice, she got dragged along into this by her friends in the first place. With that said, the goalie situation is going to affect more than just the over all teams ability to be competitive in games starting next year, it's going to affect more players decisions whether or not to continue at the h.s. or to even play if they stay at the h.s. Oh well, it is what it is.

Being a goalie can be tough on the ego in hockey (or soccer) since when you fail, the other team scores and you can feel you let the team down. While when a forward turns it over, or the defender misses stopping their opponent, those lapses often fade quickly from the memory of the opponent scoring past the goalie. I know I had to work hard on making sure my soccer goalies and the rest of the team knew, that letting in a goal, reflected on everyone, not just the goalie. That they all won or lost based on how they all played.

That being said, some kids are just good at it and thrive with the challenge and love the feeling of being the last line of defense and preventing the other teams from scoring. Those are the kids that challenge the shooter, close down the angles and make the plays. Some of that can be taught, but some of it is just instinct and desire.

On another note, StMarys was upended by Fontebonne last night 3-0. Kind of surprising given how they had been playing, but goes to my earlier point that this season seems to be a wide open field come play off time.

On another note, StMarys was upended by Fontebonne last night 3-0. Kind of surprising given how they had been playing, but goes to my earlier point that this season seems to be a wide open field come play off time.

Spot on Pete. The last few years there has always seemed to be 3 or 4 teams that stood out as the top tier teams. This year it could be 10-12 teams that could come out on top, no one team stands out but that could changed in the last 2 weeks. I still think Reading could be that team but lets see how they play the last two weeks. Does anyone have a personal favorite? Remember I said COULD

On another note, StMarys was upended by Fontebonne last night 3-0. Kind of surprising given how they had been playing, but goes to my earlier point that this season seems to be a wide open field come play off time.

Not surprised at all. Fontbonne is a pretty strong team and St Mary's s-h-o-r-t bench is catching up with them.